The big news for the past day or two has been a leaked tape of a conversation between Mario Silva, the hardcore Chavista spokesman anchorman of “La Hojilla” [The Razor] (a TV show on state-run TV channel VTV), and Aramis Palacios, a lieutenant colonel of Cuban G2.
Caracas Chronicles paints the picture-by-the-numbers
In it, Silva suggests that the military – at the prodding of Diosdado Cabello – is plotting against Maduro.
Plus, in the scorecard,
100 points to Diosdado Cabello for being Darth Vader AND Hannibal Lecter on the same day. And then showing up at Miraflores just to mug for the cameras and rub it in Maduro’s and Silva’s face. Cue in Destiny’s Child “Survivor.”
And finally, a negative 857 points to the Venezuelan people, for if Diosdado gets his way and it’s true that he has, to quote Mario Silva, “all the power without being President,” we are about to enter a world of pain that no Cuban doctor can cure.
Caracas Chronicles concludes,
What’s clear, folks, is that Diosdado Cabello is untouchable. He is the pillar upon which “chavismo sin Chávez” is built. The evidence that Cabello is undermining the Revolution with his corrupt ways is staring Maduro in the eye just as clearly as that picture in the Museo Militar. When faced with the choice of throwing Silva or Cabello under the bus, Maduro chose Silva.
Indeed, Mario Silvia is off the air “for health reasons“, the Latin American equivalent of “spending time with his family.”
A couple of weeks ago, I said,
Most observers predict that Maduro’s regime will not last long. So here’s the question: Who will succeed him, Capriles . . . or Cabello?
The signs point in that direction.